Gradually he became conscious of something impinging on his thoughts. Someone had left a transmission feed playing on the nearby wall, cycling through the same loop: one of Garlin’s legal spokespeople, agitating against his completely unjust and undemocratic detention, and warning Panoply of the grave consequences of standing up to the will of the people.
Sparver watched it silently. He took his time with the small amount of food he had gathered onto the tray, pausing every now and again to sip from a glass of water. Periodically he dabbed at his lips with a napkin. His reading glasses were folded neatly next to the tray.
Now the loop was showing an earlier statement from Garlin himself, delivered to an enthusiastic but doubtless carefully curated audience. There were whoops and wild flourishes of applause at predictable moments, even though nothing about the speech was in any way original or surprising. Garlin was recycling the same tried and tested lines, regurgitating the same beats, the same moments of apparent intimacy and sincerity. Sparver reflected on how much Garlin loathed Panoply, and yet how much he had owed to Thalia when the opposing mob finally closed in. He wondered if there was a shred of remorse or contrition in the man now, or whether he was even capable of examining his own contradictions that objectively. Perhaps there was some loop or circuit missing from the brains of people like Garlin, some absent process that prevented them from seeing themselves from outside their own skin, in all their ludicrousness. But to a degree, Sparver reflected, it must also be absent from those they swept up into their movements.
Garlin went on. His face loomed larger as his pronouncements became more blatantly threatening and divisive. Sparver studied the interesting symmetries and proportions of that face. Human features were still something of a conundrum to him, but he was getting better at mapping their essential elements, and he believed now that he would have little trouble identifying Garlin in a crowd.
He took another sip of water and pushed his tray forward. Leaving his spectacles on the table, he walked over to the wall where the playback was showing.
He removed his whiphound, extended sixty centimetres of filament, set it to sword mode, and jabbed it into Devon Garlin’s face. He dragged it down, leaving a violent, flickering wound in its wake. Blue and pink flashes spangled from the point of contact. The malfunction spread in branching cracks, radiating away from the line of damage. The cutting edge met increasing resistance as the wall’s own structural quickmatter tried to contain and rectify the attack. Finally the whiphound jammed rigid. Sparver released the handle and left it there, sticking out of the sparking, crackling display.
He rubbed his palms, turned from the chaos and went back to his table. He sat down, scraped his chair forward, drew the tray closer, and took another mouthful of water from the glass.
There was a silence from the rest of the refectory. The conversation, low as it had been to start with, had ceased completely. All eyes were on him. The other prefects had been aware of him before, but now he felt the electric prickle of their unblinking, astonished attention.
Then someone began to applaud. It was a slow, lone clap to begin with, but it was soon joined by another, and another.
Sparver continued eating. It was an odd thing, but he had begun to get a small part of his appetite back.
Fighting hard not to shake, Dreyfus wandered through the soupy, green-stained gloom until he caught up with Del Mar.
She studied his face, reading something in it.
“News about your colleague?”
“Something like that.” He swallowed, tried to marshal his words into some sort of coherence. “Not the good sort. Her condition’s worsened.”
“I’m sorry.” Del Mar was kneeing her way through dense weeds, sweeping it apart like someone swimming through mud. “Beyond our line of work, they don’t really understand how it is.”
“Our line of work?”
“What we do, the both us. Policing.”
Dreyfus forced himself to fall back into the pattern of discussion they had been enjoying before his call. “Steady on, Detective-Marshal: that almost sounds like an expression of solidarity.”
She unclipped a dainty little sidearm, adjusted a dial, and began to scythe away the worst of the overgrowth with some sort of optical beam. The weeds crackled and burned, giving off a smoky tang.
“What will happen to Garlin now?”
“He’ll be answering some questions.”
“And if he’s less than cooperative—as I’d expect?”
“Then he’ll be made uncomfortable.”
“A nice euphemism.” She paused to tweak the dial setting. “I must remember it the next time we need to apply our own enhanced interrogation package.”
“It’s not a euphemism. He’ll be interrogated, and perhaps trawled, but only after a medical assessment. He won’t be hurt, and he won’t be threatened.”
They walked on, the sagging contours of the Shell House looming larger. Dreyfus had seen the dome from the air, but once they were inside its dimensions seemed to relax, like some great green lung expanding beyond its former limits.
“Damn this grass,” Del Mar said, the sidearm giving a blinking red error light, which presumably meant it was overheating or in danger of draining its power.
“Yes, if only we’d thought to bring a sharp cutting tool, possibly one with autonomous capabilities. Are you sure no one uses this place now?”
She holstered the sidearm, resorting to brute force to push her way through the grass, Dreyfus following just behind.
“You’ll be aware of Aliya’s death in ’386. Julius left a few months later. He was legally of age by then, and I don’t think he cared to stay around a place with so many memories of his mother. Marlon stayed on, but by then he was a broken man, his money draining away, his wife gone, his only son abandoning him to his grief.”
“They say Aliya was coming back from space when she died.”
“Yes. Marlon rarely left the estate, in those latter years. He relied on Aliya to visit the remaining Voi holdings.”
“Which were?”
“A scattering of minor habitats and asteroids. Nothing of consequence. There was a property slump around that time. It was a bad period for real estate investment.”
“Do they still own those places?”
“A lump of rock called Lethe, one or two other minor pebbles. Chances are they’ll be just as derelict as this estate.”
“I’m not surprised money was tight,” Dreyfus said. “Most of the family wealth was being siphoned into Elysium Heights.”
“Do you think Marlon had a hand in that?”
“I doubt it happened willingly. Julius seems to have been the one pulling all the strings here, not the father. But that makes me wonder what Julius had on Marlon, that he could exert that sort of control.”
Del Mar let out a yelp. “Damn this as well.”
“What is it?”
“Caught my shin on this. There’s a step up to a terrace—mind yourself.”
She reached back to offer him a guiding hand.
“Thank you,” Dreyfus said, feeling that in some small way the ice had been broken.
The terrace had been invaded by weeds, covering it in a dense green carpet, but beneath the springy growth the stonework felt firm and level. They picked their way to the front of the building, where a pair of ornate, scrollwork doors lay partly closed on what must have been the main entrance. The doors were half off their hinges, sagging at an odd angle like a pair of buck teeth. Del Mar eased open the gap and produced a torch from her belt, shining it into the gloom. Dreyfus unclipped his own torch, glad to be doing something useful.
They squeezed through into the interior of the Shell House. Dreyfus swept his light around, picking out small areas at a time. The overgrowth had only managed to push its tendrils a few metres beyond the doors. Other than that the place was dusty, cobwebbed, grey with neglect. Black and white tiles led away from the entrance, down a long, grand lobby towards a metalwork staircase. T
he curving walls bore traces of ornate plasterwork, some of the pastel coloration still showing despite layers of mould, moss and dust. Doorways and arches led off into other rooms and corridors.
“The place is bigger than you’d think,” Del Mar said, as they advanced into the lobby. “Many rooms and floors. But I can’t vouch for the structural integrity of the upper levels. If you wish to poke around, you’re on your own. But if you’re expecting a blinding insight into Devon Garlin’s character, a confession note left here decades ago …”
Her torch went out. So did the one Dreyfus was carrying. There had been two white flashes, almost simultaneous, just before the torches failed. From his own, Dreyfus felt heat and an acrid burning. He dropped it before it stung his fingers, knowing it was useless.
For a moment the two of them waited in darkness. Dreyfus was certain that Del Mar was assembling the same speculative train of thoughts as he was. Something had attacked them, something in the shadowed reaches of the lobby. He had no weapon, and Del Mar’s little sidearm had already proven itself next to useless.
Light flooded the lobby. It was hard and blue. Dreyfus squinted against it, throwing up an arm in instinctive self-defence.
A robot was coming at them, emerging from the cover of one of the side rooms to their left. For a second Dreyfus was stunned into paralysis. The tall machine walked on two legs, its metal feet loud on the marble. Four segmented arms swung from its torso. Its head was a dome, with a single blue eye putting out that dazzling light.
“Halt,” Del Mar said.
The robot kept coming. She drew out her sidearm, levelled it in a single fluid movement and shot at the robot. The laser pulse flashed off the robot’s mirrored hide, leaving only a scorch mark.
“No power!” she hissed.
The robot kept advancing, walking slowly but determinedly. Wordlessly they arrived at the same joint conclusion. They spun around and broke into a heavy jog, both encumbered by belts and uniforms.
“Were you expecting—” Del Mar began.
“No,” Dreyfus said, barking out the word between breaths. “I wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a robot.”
The robot was at their backs, its blue light blazing against them, lighting up the lobby and pushing their own shadows towards the entrance. Feverishly Dreyfus considered what they would do once they were outside. The going would be much slower in the undergrowth, but he doubted that would trouble the robot. Even if they reached the volantor, they would need precious seconds to get aboard, power it up, and achieve a safe elevation.
Two more white flashes came. The lobby became a brief negative of itself. Masonry and plaster crumbled from the ceiling just ahead of them, showering onto the floor. Two more flashes followed, directed at the area above the door. Rubble and dust crashed down. Some structural beam gave a groan and the ceiling buckled lower, riven by a broad, dark crack. Debris slurried through the widening fissure.
Dreyfus and Del Mar slowed. They had not been touched by the damage, but even some of the small pieces of broken masonry could have done them real harm had they been under the point of collapse.
The message was clear enough.
They halted and turned around slowly. Del Mar still had the sidearm in her hand, its red indication blinking. Very slowly she inched her aim back onto the robot, levelling the barrel in the direction of the blue eye.
The white flash came again. It was a beam, lancing from the eye. It connected with the sidearm and exploded it instantly, leaving only the scorched stump of a handle and trigger grip. Del Mar let out another yelp and flung aside the useless item.
“Worth a try,” Dreyfus said, breathing hard.
The robot had stopped, at least. It was a good metre taller than either of them, slender at the legs and broadening to a wide pair of double-shoulders, the segmented arms nearly reaching the floor, each tipped with a three-fingered claw. The domed head was featureless save for that eye, which now locked onto them with a fierce, unblinking scrutiny.
“Who sent you?” Del Mar asked.
“I don’t think it’s here to answer questions,” Dreyfus said, when the robot gave no answer. “How’s your hand?”
“Scorched.” Slowly she raised her fist to her mouth and sucked at her thumb. “I’ll live.”
“I’m going to draw a crumb of comfort here. It could have killed us easily by now. Do you need an anaesthetic patch?”
“I’m all right.” There was a pause. “But thanks for asking.”
Dreyfus lowered himself onto his haunches, and then sat cross-legged on the hard marble floor, facing the robot with his belly squeezing against his belt.
Del Mar looked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Sitting down. I’ve a feeling we’ll be here a little while.” He touched his collar. “Dreyfus. Is anyone reading me?”
There was a silence, a crackle, a silence.
“Let me try,” Del Mar said, lowering herself down next to him. “Hestia. Pick up, someone. I need a suppression team, escalation level amber … no, make that red.” She listened, frowned, repeated herself—not once, but twice, and with steadily lessening confidence. “Blocked,” she confided. “Either the dome, the house, or that robot.”
“You have a headful of implants, Detective-Marshal. Can’t they get through to someone, or find a way to tell that robot to stand down?”
“I’ve tried those things, and about a dozen more.” She sucked at her scorched hand again. “I should have come in with some support. This will reflect very badly on me. Like it or not, you’ve been under my protection from the moment you arrived.”
“We all make mistakes,” Dreyfus said. “Comes with the job, I’d say.” He shifted his buttocks, the cold ground growing uncomfortable under him already. The robot seemed to take this as challenge, stepping forward by one menacing stride. Dreyfus raised a calming hand.
“Do you think Garlin sent it?”
“Thugs and hired muscle men are more his line. But you’ve poked your nose into this place before. Did you ever run into a robot?”
“No … not like this.” After a short silence she added: “I studied your record, Prefect. I know you went up against the Clockmaker. This … isn’t the Clockmaker, is it?”
“No, you can rest easy on that score. If we were in the presence of the Clockmaker … well, we’d know it, if only for the relatively limited amount of time it allowed us to remain alive.”
Again she was silent. Once or twice a new flurry of dust came down from the ceiling. The robot remained still, its arms dangling at its sides. But its eye swivelled occasionally, as if tracking some distant presence.
“I lost someone too. Different circumstances to your own. But not without a certain ambiguity as well. You know of the Eighty, of course.”
Dreyfus found his interest piqued more than he cared for. “Hard to avoid. We’re still living in its shadow.”
“I was fifty when Calvin began putting his first subjects through the destructive scanning apparatus. I was married then, in a triple valency. My husband and wife were Tyrone Lyall and Clemence Mersenne. Perhaps the names aren’t unfamiliar to you. They were among the Eighty, among the earliest failures.”
Dreyus had reviewed the names often enough during his background investigations into Aurora, and he recognised the people of whom she had spoken. But there was a reason the name Hestia Del Mar had not sparked off any sort of memory. She had not been one of the direct victims.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Late in the day I had second thoughts. It was a serious matter, to back out. Money had been committed, reputations nailed to that particular mast. Media attention around the clock. Calvin was very persuasive, confident of his theories, brushing aside our petty doubts. Most of us fell for it. But my qualms surfaced once the scans began. I liked life rather too much to chance everything on an unproven route to immortality. I backed out, about a month before we were due to be put through. Of course there was a scandal. But within the valency, we?
??d had an agreement. It was all or nothing. If one of us decided to withdrew, then so would the others. It was something we’d all agreed to—as serious as a marriage vow.”
“But they didn’t,” Dreyfus said softly, finally understanding—and at last realising why Aurora had claimed something in common with Hestia Del Mar. They were both, in their different ways, victims of Calvin Sylveste.
“Tyrone and Clemence went through with it anyway. Calvin moved them up the list and they were scanned within two days of my decision to withdraw. I wasn’t even there when it happened. Calvin knew I’d have used every emotional appeal, every legal means, to stop it.”
Dreyfus chose his words carefully. “I’m sorry you were betrayed. But you’ve done more for Chasm City in one honest day’s work than you’d ever have achieved as part of Calvin’s botched experiment.”
“You barely know me, Dreyfus.”
“We’re police. Different uniforms, different traditions. But not so far apart.”
The robot swivelled its eye again, tensing its body as if it meant to pounce. Dreyfus flinched in response. But he had heard something as well. It was a repetitive dull tone, like someone striking a cracked bell over and over, and it was coming slowly nearer.
Very gingerly he allowed himself to swivel around until he was facing the entrance to the lobby. Del Mar did likewise. The sound gained in volume, even while the interval between the tones remained unchanged. The robot’s eye brightened, casting a confusion of shadows and highlights. Dreyfus tried to peer beyond the ruined entrance to the green swelter of the dome. A dark form loomed into view. It was a low, crouching figure, moving in a lopsided fashion across the terrace. Dreyfus stared, trying to fit this new apparition into his half-formed theories of Wildfire and the Voi family.
The figure reached the doorway, a smudge of black against the green background of the dome. The figure tapped something long and hard against one of the sagging doors, then made a spiderlike incursion through the irregular gap into the dust and debris of the lobby. Then it resumed its lopsided approach, ramming a walking stick against the marble, the tone shifting now that it was inside.